


polaris

by moonrail



Series: stellifer [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Post-699, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 08:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8365306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonrail/pseuds/moonrail
Summary: Itachi is ten years old. He wakes up at the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War.





	

The first thing that comes out of Itachi’s mouth is: “Oh.”

He wakes in the middle of stilted, decaying silence. It’s his home.

It doesn’t feel like home at all.

* * *

 

Itachi explores his abandoned house, pokes and prods to make sure it is very much real. But it’s no genjutsu, no matter how he pinches himself or manipulates his chakra.

He steps outside after an hour of investigation.

Two houses away to his left, the third building and the one across it is seared clean through. Konoha is _bare_.

In the space of a second, he panics.

Then Itachi reigns it in with shards of his calm and counts _1, 2, 3_ , rinse and repeat even when he is wide eyed and barely clinging to the air in his lungs. He acknowledges the faint noises— _human voices, is konoha left with survivors or conquerors_ —from a far distance but he can’t tear his sight away from the house, cleanly cut like hot knife through butter.

A family of four lived in that house across. Uchiha Kimiko’s house is— _was_ —the one on his left. The elderly woman who smiled at him and often gave both him and Sasuke konpeito.

_Sasuke._

Itachi swallows. It is as if a katon jutsu is stuck in his throat.

* * *

 

Sixth Hokage, Hatake Kakashi stares at the boy kneeling before him.

He is tempted to label it as an alien occurrence and wave it off. The giant headache is towering above him, snickering as it bids its time for an assault.

“Hatake-san—Hokage-sama, I…”

Yes, he deeply relates to the dazed and lost look in Itachi’s eyes. A pair that he is sure he would never see again.

_The boy is absurdly small. How old is he? Oh god, my retirement is long overdue._

“Tell me what happened. Don’t leave anything out. Oh, and when I say ‘don’t leave anything out,’ I mean _spill everything._ ”

* * *

 

_Sasuke. It’s about Itachi. Urgent. Kakashi._

* * *

 

“Oh,” he says. That is all Itachi can spare.

The mission he had been on was recorded as complete even when he was not half-way through.

But there are more that plague his mind.

His thirteen year old self massacred every single person in his clan to prevent a coup. He spared only Sasuke. He died by Sasuke’s hand approximately eight years later. He was revived in the Fourth Shinobi World War but faded away soon after.

Uchiha clan is gone. Dead. By his hands— _by my very own hands—_

“Itachi,” he couldn’t lift his gaze from the wooden floor—it’s new, he notes detachedly, “ _breathe._ ”

The scream, he somehow bites down and it burns his esophagus like hellfire. The trembling, he could not stop despite the conditioning he had repeatedly gone through— _no weakness in front of anyone, Itachi_.

 _Father isn’t here to reprimand me anyway_ , he thinks bitterly and viciously.

“Sit, Itachi.” Hatake Kakashi, the Hokage, tells him.

“I—“

“ _Sit_.”

He sits.

* * *

 

Naruto bursts through the door, blinks, rubs his eyes, gapes, mouth widening to scream—

Kakashi clicks his tongue, gaze warningly unrepentant.

—he clears his throat and he walks to the table with a shaky smile with a gait similar to walking on a pavement that is scrambling through an earthquake.

Well, it’s Itachi alright. All dark, pale and controlled. Even as a child few years his junior.

“…Itachi, right?”

“Yes,” confusion or surprise flits through his eyes which, compared to twenty-one year old Itachi, is so much easier to read, “Uzumaki Naruto-san, do—did I know you?”

“Well, not really,” he rubs the back of his neck, almost releasing a fond sigh, “but I know your brother.”

Child Itachi could have been made of wax and Naruto would not have found a difference. His stillness is perplexing and alarming. Naruto tosses a withering look at Kakashi who is bestowing his every attention to Itachi rigidly sitting in front of him. _Coward._

“I see,” Naruto stops himself from literally rolling his eyes; _Uchihas_ , “how is Sasuke?”

_Fucked up. Like really fucked up. And you fucked him up._

“Travelling.” _Healing_.  

“He’s alright?”

 _No, not really._ “He will be.”

When Itachi inhales, Naruto can almost hear the rattling of his lungs against his hollow ribs and his tired heart.

 _He’s tiny,_ and Naruto thinks of him being thirteen with all that blood coating his fingers then shivers, _Uchihas are so. Ugh. Complicated._

Itachi nods, whispering a thank you. This time, Kakashi subtly signs that he has a plan.

“What will you do now, Itachi?”

 _Home_. It’s carved into his thin, stiff shoulders and papery complexion.

“Konoha,” the reply comes softly, “I will serve Konoha until I can find a way back.”

Never before had Naruto wanted to embrace a child so urgently. His hand twitches and Kakashi spares him a glance, not commenting.

“Do you think you would ever find a way back?”

Sharp inhale. Penetrating, scalding gaze. The Hokage raises a politely inquiring brow.

“I will.” It’s an answer through barely disguised gritted teeth.

Tension thickens like mist made for strangulation. The child and the man do not waver. Naruto is near fretting at the side.

“Fine.” A painfully woeful sigh, “We’ll be discussing details of your stay then.”

Relief is the breaking of a dam inside him. He grins and offers a thumbs up for Itachi.

At least he receives a tilt of his lips, a shortcut version of a tiny smile, as acknowledgement.

It could’ve been worse.

* * *

 

When Naruto tells his friends, they remain skeptically accepting.

Then sigh—or grumble—when they spot the child. They remain relatively undisturbed by the strange happenings that revolve around him by now.

“He’s living with you?” Sakura asks, uncertain, and prominently sad when her eyes flick to Itachi.

“Yeah.” Naruto smiles and ruffles Itachi’s hair to which he stills as if a butterfly caught in a spider’s web. Disheartening but well, Naruto’s waited on Sasuke for years before too.

Sakura pinches the bridge of her nose, “But you are a mess,” she relents immediately, “I’ll help whenever I can. Though for now, it’s the hospital for me.”

“Thanks, Sakura-chan.” He waves her goodbye.

_He’s coming back._

_I know._

* * *

 

It is two days later when Sasuke, wild-eyed and shaking, barges in with no warning whatsoever. Naruto takes that as a sign to leave silently. And use privacy seals because, well, he knows what Itachi means to Sasuke and what Sasuke means to Itachi.

Time for some ramen.

* * *

 

_“…Nii-san?”_

_“Sasuke.”_

* * *

 

Itachi thinks that he could have given more than he did at that moment. An apology for an uncountable number of things, promises he may keep or something. Something _more_.

But thoughts fall away at the sight of his brother’s stricken face. A Sharingan. A Rinnegan.

None of his left arm.

Someone has punched a hole in his chest and scraped his insides clean. The world tilts and a monster rages in his head, stringing words that bleed _red_ together: _kill, rev **enge, kill, KILL**_ —

“Nii-san!”

His Sharingan had unfurled beneath his notice. _1, 2, 3, repeat_.

“Sasuke,” he almost hisses, “who did that to you?”

Pause.

And Sasuke laughs.

It’s hysterical enough that Itachi startles. Sasuke’s laughter rings inside his head, a razor-edged, fragile thing. The entirety of it weighs like a death sentence, mocking him. He couldn’t ignore it when the result of his future actions is laughing himself hoarse in front of him.

(As if laughter could incite death.)

His mistakes are so difficult to accept when it is really not his at all.

 _But you would have_ , the thought slithers tauntingly in the back of his mind, _look at him_.

“You left me,” is what Sasuke brokenly says, half gasping. His body sags to the floor, his remaining hand covering his face. “You left me.”

The apologies he wants to offer seems so much more unworthy now. A cheap thing that rots on his tongue.

But his desperate craving is such an easy thing to surrender to. Itachi moves before the workings of his brain could weave a perfect plan of action and his hands encircle what they can of Sasuke, hand patting his little brother’s back much like he used to do years ago— _it had been a week ago_ —and burying his head into Sasuke’s shoulder.

Sasuke doesn’t go limp. It’s the only thing that divides him from the dead.

“I love you, Sasuke.”

_I’m so sorry._

After choking on silence in a space of a hazy eternity, Sasuke’s hand tentatively reaches his back, a reassurance he cannot— _never_ —deny Sasuke of. Itachi is exceedingly familiar with patience. He continues to acquaint Sasuke with a comforting gesture he should never have forgotten. Like contact with a family member— _human_ contact is a strange, abstract concept.

_I’m so sorry._

And when minutes pass and the dream persists on, Sasuke's grip on his clothes is comparable to a drowning man and Itachi is the only entity keeping him afloat. Sasuke sobs first, then wails—a keening sound that so completely unsettles his own resolve.

They cry.

* * *

 

_What will I do now?_

Itachi looks at Sasuke, sleeping deeply and hand tangled with his.

He wonders if he would find his answer in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> this is a weird product of my uchiha feels. it's unlikely i'll ever continue this but i imagine that itachi would have no choice but to stay resulting in more uchiha broship moments (they _need_ happiness ugh).


End file.
